Smoke Shifters; Learning to Love the Ban

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

Published: October 29, 2006

TO: French citizens worried that the impending smoking ban will cause irreparable harm to their cafe society and can never be enforced.

From: Italy, the neighbor to the southeast, which has been there, done that.

On Jan. 10, 2005, Italy enacted a law that banned smoking in public places like offices, restaurants, cafes and bars. Smokers declared -- basta! -- they would never comply. Restaurateurs were certain business would flag. And politicians worried that an essential pleasure of Italy would be lost.

Nearly two years later, this is what has transpired, according to studies following the fallout from the law: People in Italy smoke a lot less and are exposed to far less secondhand smoke

In fact, the law has become very popular, with support for smoking bans increasing yearly among nonsmokers and smokers alike. Business in bars is up. A study in Turin found that the number of people brought to hospital emergency rooms after suffering heart attacks decreased after the ban (secondhand smoke could be a trigger), a finding that echoes studies in the United States.

In Italy -- where laws are often enforced with a large degree of latitude and where red lights are ignored if they are deemed inconvenient -- there is nearly 100 percent compliance with the antismoking statutes.

''Italy is not known for success with this kind of regulation, so if it is working in Italy, it can work everywhere,'' said Silvano Gallus, a researcher at the Mario Negri Institute in Milan, who has studied the law's effect. ''I have been very surprised that all Italians, including smokers, seem to be happy with this legislation. Overnight, it has changed the atmosphere.''

There were howls in the weeks before the ban took hold, just as there is anger building now in France. Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio, a smoker and the leader of the Green Party, hoped the law would not be applied in ''too restrictive'' a manner. Fausto Bertinotti, leader of the Refounded Communist Party, worried that the law ''would have an influence on our way of life,'' that it would result in a slippery slope, targeting smokers today and someone else's pleasure tomorrow.

''Before antismoking laws, every country thinks, 'Our country is different, we won't be able to enforce the law here,' '' said Geoffrey Fong, a psychologist at the University of Waterloo in Canada who leads the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project. ''But in every community that's gone ahead and tried it, strong initial resistance very quickly gives way to acceptance.''

Almost two years after the legislation was enacted, Italians have come around. In interviews with bar owners and restaurateurs in Rome, all responded with broad praise for the law and said it had not hurt business.

''It was a huge change, a shock, but most people came to appreciate it since it has improved the atmosphere for dining,'' said Alberto Baldo, manager of the Vernissage Restaurant and Wine Bar in Piazza San Eustacio. ''Everyone accepts it now, even smokers. No one wants to go back.''

Smokers said they were now used to waiting until the end of the meal for a cigarette, or stepping outside for a smoke (granted, it is warmer in Italy than in much of France). Many said they were smoking less. ''It's a bit of a headache to go outside,'' Marco Catalano, who works in a bank, said as he stood outside a bar near Parliament smoking a cigarette. ''But I used to smoke 10 cigarettes during a dinner out. Now I smoke one or none at all.''

In the three months after the ban, cigarette sales dropped 8 percent, Italian tobacco sales data indicate. Among young people ages 15 to 24 the sales drop was most pronounced: 23 percent.

In 2004, more than 26 percent of the Italian population smoked. That dropped to 24.3 percent in 2006, although it is not clear how much of the drop can be attributed to the ban, since the numbers had been decreasing slightly anyway.

A study in Ireland, whose ban in 2004 was the first in Europe, showed that half of all smokers said the smoke-free law had made them more likely to quit. ''We can say that smoke-free policies account for a decrease in consumption,'' Mr. Gallus said.

In a representative survey of more than 3,000 Italians conducted by Mr. Gallus in collaboration with the DOXA Institute, a polling group, 9.6 percent of those who responded said they went to bars and restaurants more since the smoking ban; 7.4 percent said they went out less.

''The tobacco industry says that people will go out of business with a smoking ban, but that's just a myth, it's not supported by evidence,'' Mr. Fong said.

In Mr. Gallus's survey, which was published in The Annals of Oncology, 90 percent of the Italians polled said they supported the ban, including many smokers. Violations are enforced with fines of more than $250. Smoking is still permitted in outdoor seating areas.

Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Scotland and Uruguay have enacted total bans, as have Australia and Canada and many jurisdictions of the United States. The Italian law gives restaurants and bars the option of creating sealed and independently ventilated smoking rooms, but only a tiny number of them have taken that expensive step.

So, dear French neighbors, don't fret about being smoke free. Your ban won't really hit until 2008, anyway. Italians will tell you they worried for naught, about another Y2K that never happened.

Maurizio Bertusi, owner of Rome's Enoteca Capranica, said: ''It has been good, actually, because everywhere there are more nonsmokers than smokers, so this keeps the larger number happy.''